Net Neutrality Bill Sails Through the House But Faces an Uncertain Political Future (washingtonpost.com)

House lawmakers on Wednesday approved a Democrat-backed bill (alternative source) that would restore rules requiring AT&T, Verizon and other Internet providers to treat all Web traffic equally, marking an early step toward reversing one of the most significant deregulatory moves of the Trump era. From a report: But the net neutrality measure is likely to stall from here, given strong Republican opposition in the GOP-controlled Senate and the White House, where aides to President Trump this week recommended that he veto the legislation if it ever reaches his desk. The House's proposal, which passed by a vote of 232-190, would reinstate federal regulations that had banned AT&T, Verizon and other broadband providers from blocking or slowing down customers' access to websites. Adopted in 2015 during the Obama administration, these net neutrality protections had the backing of tech giants and startups as well as consumer advocacy groups, which together argued that strong federal open Internet protections were necessary to preserve competition and allow consumers unfettered access to movies, music and other content of their choice.

Comments

Voting matters!

[Ksevio]

For all the people that say both parties are the same, here's a clear difference in policy.

Unless you're against Net Neutrality, don't vote for the GOP next cycle

Re:Voting matters!

[ilsaloving]

Except that it isn't about a single issue. It's about a pattern.

Democrats could push a bill that says, "Every conservative will get a free million dollars paid for by the left" and it would still get blocked, for no other reason than because it was Democrats that pushed it. Republicans have a *demonstrated* track record of doing this exact thing.

Hell, they had a good two year period where they controlled ALL the major branches of government. And what did they do? They spent the overwhelming majority of time reversing anything and anything the Democrats so much as glanced at, no matter how sensible. Oh, and trying to blame Hillary for everything up to and including running a child prostitution ring out of a pizzeria. I have no idea if they've managed to accomplish anything useful because if they did, it was drowned out by near limitless barrage of nonsense.

The Democrats are not perfect. Very far from it, in fact. But they are the epitome of sanity compared to the GOP.

Re:internet still works for me

[Drethon]

My internet is still working for me for what I reasonably expect from my ISP for the price I am paying. If my ISP starts fiddling with my connection I'll pick another ISP.
Remember buying internet access is a voluntary transaction between two parties if you don't like the service pick someone else.

Yeah, I'll make sure to switch from my one cable provider to my one cable provider if they start acting up.

Re:Useless political Grandstanding

[flippy]

Yup. Unfortunately, it's not an issue that's going to change anyone's vote. I'm all for an open market and less government regulation, but if we're going down that road with ISPs, we should go all the way - stop giving out government-sponsored monopolies to cable companies (read: ISPs) and the like, and have real competition. Then, the cry of "if your ISP isn't giving you what you want, switch to another provider!" can really happen.

Re:You're a lazy whiner

[MachineShedFred]

Really.

So in order to get around a bad-faith company abusing their market position, I should conduct a multi-hundred-thousand dollar transaction to sell my house, pack up all my earthly belongings at financial and time expense, and move to where another company may or may not be abusing their monopoly position already?

There is a non-zero probability that you are a massive idiot.

Re:Centralized political solution to Decentralizat

[Shotgun]

The opposite should happen. The government is only able to grant the monopolies through their power of eminent domain. To me, that is the doctrine that says the public's need is so overwhelming that we're going to use the force of government to seize someone's property.

Well, if it is so important to the common good that the use of force is justified, then the resource should not leave the public's control. Just like the roads, the communication and power infrastructure should be taken over by the government. ISPs and power generation should remain private businesses. The government should create rules to control how the resources are accessed and used, just like the roads. It should have always been this way.

Ever notice how the worst parts of our system are the result of poor decisions early on?

Re:Centralized political solution to Decentralizat

[MachineShedFred]

For many people cable really is the only viable Internet service method. DSL bandwidth isn't adequate unless you live very close to the DSLAM, and wireless is way too expensive.

Because building out a cable network is massively expensive as well as a bureaucratic nightmare, it basically means that incumbent operators are de facto monopolies, even without the monopoly contract.

Remember when Google was trying to throw billions of dollars around making city-wide fiber networks, and then gave up? Yeah, if they can't get it done, what chance does some small-time operation with orders of magnitude less capital and political might?